I love Portland!
Tonight, my friend Jackie and I made last minute plans to attend the Oliver Sacks lecture on music and the brain.
The event was sold out, so I went early to look for a scalper or extra tickets. On arrival, I found a line of people waiting for spare tickets to be released at the last moment, and absolutely no scalpers.
I joined the line, and soon struck up a conversation with the man ahead of me, a clinical psychologist. Steve worked as a hospital chaplain before going back to school for psychology. Within a short time, Don, the man behind me, had joined our chat. He is a music teacher. We were discussing music therapy and my former cat’s love of Sibelius when I observed that the people in line ahead of us who had made signs saying “Need tickets” had all disappeared. We scrambled for pens and paper. Don wrote my sign(suggesting I add “pleaze”) and Steve proposed we form a team.
Steve held his sign high, Don held his in front of him, I held mine next to my cleavage. We waited.
After a few moments, a tall woman in a black and red coat handed Steve two tickets. Don and I looked at each other. Steve then proposed that the three of us split the cost of the other two tickets needed. I was stunned. Don and I agreed.
Several minutes later, a man with over 20 tickets came over, and, saying “Merry Christmas” handed us each a ticket. Wow.
Steve handed me his spare. After sorting our selves out, I found that I actually had three tickets; two were stuck together. Steve asked Don and I to bless his lucky sign before handing it off to a person in line behind us, and we said our goodbyes.
